1. Related Technical Fields
Related technical fields include parking assist devices, methods, and programs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional parking assist devices provide assistance to a driver of a vehicle while parking. These devices acquire image data from rear-mounted onboard camera. The image data generated by the camera is output into a display disposed near the driver seat. This onboard camera normally is for capturing an image of the background in the center portion of the vehicle rear bumper and the rear side of the vehicle.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-244688 discloses a parking assist device that accumulates the image data acquired from a rear-mounted onboard camera in a memory. As a result, an image is displayed which synthesizes the background of the vehicle in an area below the floor of the vehicle and areas near the rear corners (blind spot regions) using the accumulated image data. According to this device, when the vehicle starts to move in reverse, image data is read out from the memory that represents areas in blind spot regions and used to synthesize a view of the blind spot regions from the driver seat. Thus, a viewpoint is set to the position of the driver seat, and an image is displayed on the display screen including the blind regions such as the rear body of the vehicle when the rear side is viewed from the driver seat.